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Italian Linguistics Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Italian Linguistics

Facilitating Lexical Acquisition In Beginner Learners Of Italian Through Task-Induced Involvement Load, Vanessa J. Natale Rukholm Jan 2016

Facilitating Lexical Acquisition In Beginner Learners Of Italian Through Task-Induced Involvement Load, Vanessa J. Natale Rukholm

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This empirical study explores the facilitation of lexical acquisition and retention through an incidental experiment examining the effect of Involvement Load on Italian vocabulary growth among beginner learners. The experiment, with a pre-test/post-test design investigates the facilitative effects of elaborate processing on L2 lexical acquisition and retention. Participants in sections of the same first-year Italian course were divided into one of five groups consisting of a Control Group and four Treatment groups. Treatment groups were divided based on level of Involvement (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) such that some groups processed target words elaborately (Craik, 2002; Lockhart, 2002) through vocabulary exercises …


Gestures As Mimetic Forms Of Identity In Post-Secondary Italian As A Foreign Language Classrooms: A Sociocultural Perspective, Ilaria Nardotto Peltier May 2015

Gestures As Mimetic Forms Of Identity In Post-Secondary Italian As A Foreign Language Classrooms: A Sociocultural Perspective, Ilaria Nardotto Peltier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study investigates the use of mimetic gestures of identity by foreign language teachers of Italian and their students in college classes as a form of meaning-making. All four of the teachers were found to use a variety of Italian gestures as a regular aspect of their teaching and presentation of self. Students and teachers also were found to mirror each other’s gestures. None of the teachers had been video-recorded before the study and all were surprised to see the degree to which they appeared to be Italian, although at the same time all believed this to be an important …